Microfiber from textile dyeing and printing wastewater of a typical industrial park in China: Occurrence, removal and release

Microfibers (MFs) are fibrous micro particles of longitude <5 mm, including natural fibers and fibrous microplastics. Microplastic pollution has become a world issue. As the major section of fiber production and processing, textile industry is an important potential source of microfibers, while receiving limited attention. To better understand the source and fate of textile microfibers, in this study, a typical textile industrial park in China is selected as the studying site. Microfibers in textile wastewater from typical textile mills and centralized wastewater treatments plants (WWTPs) of the park, and microfibers in nearby surface water were identified and characterized. The main results showed that the microfiber concentration in textile printing and dyeing wastewater could reach as high as 54,100 MFs/L. Although the removal efficiencies of microfibers by existing wastewater treatment processes can be over 85%, the average microfiber concentration in the effluents from the centralized WWTPs of the industrial park still reached 537.5 MFs/L, releasing 430 billion microfiber items per day. Microfiber release from textile wastewater is considerably higher than that from municipal sewage treatment plants, making it a significant contributor to microfibers in natural water bodies. Small-sized and colored microfibers increased in proportion in the treated effluents. Given the complex textile wastewater constituents, the potential negative environmental impacts of textile microfibers may be intensified by the enhanced adsorption and transfer of textile pollutants through these microfibers.